Teaming up!

As someone who always – ALWAYS – prefers to do things on their own, I seem to have taken a shine to teaming up with other people on projects of late.

I mean, none of these projects have really moved from the ‘let’s do this!’ stage, but the potential and possibility are pretty exciting!

The first was a proposal by my old buddy Fraser, who thought to suggest banding together to write our respective projects and narrate some of each other’s work. Partly as mutual motivation to keep writing and partly because we could each do with the other gender’s voice to narrate certain characters.

We write very different genres (and enjoy different genres) but we’re otherwise incredibly like-minded. It seems both an odd match for collaboration and an ideal match for collaboration.

The usual pitfalls of living on opposite sides of the planet and having busy working and family lives apply, but I think we’ll be able to make it work. Writing is, after all, a fairly individual process.

But I think I’ll be expanding the website I’ve started building already to incorporate his work into the mix, add a domain name or two to direct to the same blog. It’s exciting! Though I have yet to figure out where I’m going to find the time. I have a lot of spinning plates in the air these days and frequently the bigger projects get set aside in favour of a quicker project so I can get that ‘sense of achievement’ fix and the satisfaction of crossing something off my to-do list.

That’s another reason I’m looking forward to this collaboration on top of the motivation of subscribing readers – the more motivation to sit down and write, the better!

Related, I found a memory on Facebook that talks about how procrastination isn’t…

“…typically a function of laziness, apathy or work ethic […] [i]t’s a neurotic self-defence behaviour that develops to protect a person’s sense of self-worth. [P]rocrastinators tend to be people who have, for whatever reason, developed to perceive an unusually strong association between their performance and their value as a person. This makes failure or criticism disproportionately painful, which leads naturally to hesitancy when it comes to the prospect of doing anything that reflects their ability – which is pretty much everything.” – David Caine, Procrastination Is Not Laziness. [https://www.raptitude.com/2011/05/procrastination-is-not-laziness/]

Obviously, this is a direct hit and I can’t help but wonder if he’s actually talking about me specifically. (He’s not, but he definitely sank my battleship.)

A whole lot of who I am (or who I feel I am) is connected to my writing, and when it’s been so very long since I did any writing, I feel like my value as a person is as low as my muses are rusty. Obviously, this isn’t a great state of affairs for my writing and the prospect of getting these projects off the ground without a lot of encouragement.

So, teaming up!

The other unexpected collaboration that may or may not actually eventuate is putting together a stall at the local market with a friend who actually lives nearby – it’s great to find local people I can be friends with! – and who also enjoys crochet! We’ve all but decided the stall is going to be called Hooked Up. Just a pair of hookers who’ve hooked up for a stall. I’ll be selling my wares under Bearecraft, which is another website/shop project I have to get off the ground (yay, another spinning plate!).

But I’m as excited by this idea as I am about the prospect of teaming up with Fraser. Hell, maybe some other writers will want to join in! (The writing project more than the crochet project, obviously!)

It’s a strange thing, almost alien to me, but I haven’t had much (if any) luck trying to work on my own. Perhaps teaming up with other people also in need of encouragement and motivation will be just the boost to my energy, self-esteem, and enthusiasm that I need.

Not to mention, accountability!

Now, to find/make/magic up some time….